OF THE RELIGION OF THE CHINESE.

THE first settlers of China inspired their children, and through them their numerous posterity, with proper notions of the Supreme Being; but in process of time they adopted the idolatries and superstitions which at an early period became general over almost the whole earth. The precise date of the change cannot be fixed. According to Du Halde, idolatry did not take deep root or become general, till about 1200 years after its introduction. It was not universally received as the religion of the country, which did not immediately sink into superstition, folly, or impiety, like the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians and Canaanites. The Chinese for a long time neither deified their monarchs, nor introduced those impious rites into their idolatrous worship, which were practised by other nations.

There are two or three sects of religionists in China, the principal of which is that of Fo, introduced about sixty-five years A. C. Among other follies, they believe in the doctrine of transmigration, which their priests or bonzes make subservient to their own interest. They pretend to know precisely the present state of the dead, and the future state of the living. In the one case, they extort money from surviving

*It is the opinion of many learned men, that the colony which first peo. pled China, was composed of the immediate descendants of Noah. If so, they must have carried with them his paternal instructions, his opinions on religion, and the whole treasure of antediluvian knowledge. In support of this conjecture, the canonical books of the Chinese every where confirm the idea of a Supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver of all things: they say that "he is the principle of every thing that exists, the Father of all living;" that “his power knows no bounds; his sight equally comprehends the past, present, and the future. He is pure, holy, and impartial. Wickedness offends his sight; but he beholds with complacency the virtuous actions of men; that public calamities and the irregularities of the seasons are only salutary warnings, which his fatherly goodness gives to men, to induce them to reform and amend." Such is the character, and such are the attributes of a Supreme Being of the Chinese, which are declared in almost every page of their canonical books.

friends to procure for the deceased a speedy release and passage into a better state. In the other, by threatening the living with an unhappy transmigration, as into the bodies of rats, horses, mules, or beasts of burden, they either extort money to procure them a happier station, or leave them to live in dread of the disagreeable change. These extravagances are despised and condemned by the wiser sort, but are believed by the common people.

The great philosopher Confucius who flourished about 479 years B. C. spoke and wrote correctly about the attributes of the Deity, and also inculcated excellent morals; but his system was chiefly confined to the literati and philosophers.

Some of the Chinese pay a kind of worship to the sun, moon, stars, planets, mountains, rivers, and also to the souls of their ancestors. They pay the same sort of worship, but in a higher degree, to their deceased monarchs, great philosophers, and other eminent persons, to all of whom they build temples, altars, and triumphal arches.

In the seventeenth century a synagogue of Jews was discovered in China by a Catholic missionary. During the long residence of the Jews in this country they had been involved in various calamities; their synagogue was inundated in 1446 by the river Hoangho. They also suffered by fire about the year 1600, and from another desolating inundation in 1642.

In 1704, father Gozani, a Jesuit missionary, had the curiosity to investigate the state of the Jews in the empire. They shewed him one of their volumes or parchment rolls of the Pentateuch, written in Hebrew, in fair and legible characters, and also other parts of the Old Testament. They acknowledged they had lost part of their sacred books, by the overflowing of a river, which had greatly damaged the roll of the Pentateuch. To remedy this misfortune, they ordered twelve fair copies to be taken of it, which are still carefully preserved in the tabernacles that are placed in the synagogues.

They informed Gozani, that they divided the five books of Moses into fifty-two lessons, one for every sabbath throughout the year. Their synagogue fronts the west, and when they address their prayers to God, they turn towards that quarter. In the middle of the synagogue stands a mag

nificent chair raised very high, and richly adorned with crimson velvet, gold fringe, tassels, &c. This they style the chair of Moses, on which every sabbath, and on days of great solemnity, the law and other parts of the Old Testament are read.

These Jews form matrimonial alliances among themselves, but never with strangers. They preserve most of the ceremonies mentioned in the Old Testament, such as circumcision, the feast of unleavened bread, the paschal lamb, the sabbath and other Jewish festivals.' They pray and read the law with the thaled, or veil over their faces, in remembrance of Moses. They also abstain from blood, and retain the Jewish manner of killing their animals and preparing their food. They told Gozani, that their ancestors came from a kingdom of the west, called the kingdom of Judah, which Joshua conquered after they had left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and traversed the desert. They neither kindle fire, nor cook any victuals on Saturday; but prepare on Friday whatever may be necessary for the day following. When Gozani spoke to them of the Messiah, promised in the Holy Scriptures, and told them of his advent, and that he was called Jesus; they replied, that mention was made in their Bible of a holy man named Jesus, who was the son of Sirach; but that they were wholly unacquainted with the new Jesus, of whom he spoke. From this circumstance, it is probable that they had resided in their present remote settlement for several centuries anterior to the Christian æra.

The Mahometans have multiplied much more in China, than the Jews. In the course of six hundred years, they have formed several establishments. For a great number of years, they only increased by natural generation among themselves; but for some time past, they have been very zealous in making proselytes to their religious system. With this view, they purchase for money the children of poor people of sects different from themselves, who are compelled, by necessity, to part with them. These they circumcise, and afterwards educate and instruct in the Mahometan religion. In the time of a great famine, they purchased more than ten thousand of

such children, for whom, when grown up, they procured wives, and built houses. They are now become so numerous, that they exclude from the places in which they reside, every inhabitant who does not believe in Mahomet, and frequent a mosque.

Christianity was, as already stated, introduced into China in the seventh century; and totally suppressed in the ninth. The Christian priests, to the number of 3000, were ordered to return to a secular life.

After the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, in 1498, the Jesuits attempted to introduce Christianity into China. They stood on high ground, from their superior knowledge, and particularly from their acquaintance with the virtues of Peruvian bark, by means of which they cured the emperor of an obstinate tertian fever, when all other remedies, in the hands of native physicians, had failed. They also acquired great respect from their skill in mathematics, and mechanical philosophy, and particularly by a great number of European curiosities, such as watches, clocks, maps, quadrants, globes, and all sorts of mathematical instruments, and other useful articles, which they introduced among the Chinese. These proud people were in the habit of considering all the world blind but themselves; but when they found that the Jesuits could, by calculation, predict the time of eclipses, and also exhibit several other proofs of ingenuity, beyond the powers of the Chinese literati, they relinquished so much of the high opinion entertained of their fancied superiority, as to acknowledge that Europeans "had one eye."

Notwithstanding these collateral advantages in favour of the introduction of Christianity, it was soon proscribed. The missionaries were driven out of their churches, and conducted either to Pekin or Canton. Three hundred Christian churches were destroyed, or converted to secular purposes. This revolution was effected partly by the jealousies of the native priests, who foresaw the downfal of their own consequence on the establishment of a new religion, and partly by the divisions which prevailed among the missionaries. They split into parties on several grounds, but particularly on the fol

lowing: One party was for temporising, by the aid of nice distinctions, relative to grades of worship, so as to admit the Chinese to the distinguishing rites of Christianity, though they continued in the practice of their idolatrous worship. Another was for requiring a total renunciation of every act or thing connected with idolatry, as an essential prerequisite to their admission into the Christian church.

The attempt to introduce Christianity into China by the missionary Jesuits having failed, the idolatrous religion of the country has ever since been stationary and undisturbed. An effort to introduce Christianity among them is now making by different means, and under different auspices. The word of God, contained in the Holy Scriptures, has been lately translated into the Chinese language, with a view to its circulation. This has been undertaken by the British and Foreign Bible Society, in hopes that the superior excellence of the Christian religion, when presented to their view in its native dress, without any human additaments, will, under the smiles of heaven, work its own way against the combined force of ignorance, error, interest, and prejudice.

OF THE GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND POLITICS OF THE CHINESE.

THE emperor of China assumes the most magnificent titles, such as lord of the world, governor of the whole earth, &c. As far as known, the government of the Chinese has always been monarchical.* It has at different times been split into a number of petty kingdoms; and some of these have shaken off their subjection to the emperor, but they have all been brought to their former dependence.

The court of Pekin is the only one in Asia, where the chief of the nation is not surrounded and protected by a formidable military guard. The only confidential guards of the

The Chinese have been so long attached to a monarchical government, that the Dutch ambassadors, on a late occasion, found it difficult to make them comprehend what was meant by the states general and the republic of Holland.